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CONFIG(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual CONFIG(8)
NAMEconfig -- build system configuration files
SYNOPSISconfig [-gpr] [-ddestdir] SYSTEM_NAMEDESCRIPTION
This is the old version of the config program. It understands the old
autoconfiguration scheme used on the HP300, i386, DECstation, and deriva-
tive platforms. The new version of config is used with the SPARC plat-
form. Only the version of config applicable to the architecture that you
are running will be installed on your machine.
config builds a set of system configuration files from the file
SYSTEM_NAME which describes the system to configure. A second file tells
config what files are needed to generate a system and can be augmented by
configuration specific set of files that give alternate files for a spe-
cific machine (see the FILES section below).
Available options and operands:
-ddestdir Use destdir as the output directory, instead of the default
one. Note that config does not append SYSTEM_NAME to the
directory given.
-g Configure a system for debugging.
-p Configure a system for profiling; for example, kgmon(8) and
gprof(1). If two or more -p options are supplied, config
configures a system for high resolution profiling.
-r Remove the old compile directory (see below).
SYSTEM_NAME Specify the name of the system configuration file containing
device specifications, configuration options and other sys-
tem parameters for one system configuration.
config should be run from the conf subdirectory of the system source
(usually /sys/ARCH/conf), where ARCH represents one of the architectures
supported by FreeBSD. config creates the directory
../../compile/SYSTEM_NAME or the one given with the -d option as neces-
sary and places all output files there. If the output directory already
exists and the -r flag was specified, it will be removed first. The out-
put of config consists of a number of files; for the i386, they are:
ioconf.c, a description of what I/O devices are attached to the system;
Makefile, used by make(1) in building the system; header files, defini-
tions of the number of various devices that will be compiled into the
system.
After running config, it is necessary to run ``make depend'' in the
directory where the new makefile was created. config prints a reminder
of this when it completes.
If any other error messages are produced by config, the problems in the
configuration file should be corrected and config should be run again.
Attempts to compile a system that had configuration errors are likely to
fail.
If the optionsINCLUDE_CONFIG_FILE is used in the configuration file the
entire input file is embedded in the new kernel. This means that
strings(1) can be used to extract it from a kernel: to extract the con-
figuration information, use the command
strings kernel | grep ___
DEBUG KERNELS
Traditional BSD kernels compiled without symbols due to the heavy load on
the system when compiling a ``debug'' kernel. A debug kernel contains
complete symbols for all the source files, and enables an experienced
kernel programmer to analyse the cause of a problem. The debuggers
available prior to 4.4BSD-Lite were able to find some information from a
normal kernel; gdb(1) provides very little support for normal kernels,
and a debug kernel is needed for any meaningful analysis.
For reasons of history, time and space, building a debug kernel is not
the default with FreeBSD: a debug kernel takes up to 30% longer to build
and requires about 30 MB of disk storage in the build directory, compared
to about 6 MB for a non-debug kernel. A debug kernel is about 11 MB in
size, compared to about 2 MB for a non-debug kernel. This space is used
both in the root file system and at run time in memory. Use the -g
option to build a debug kernel. With this option, config causes two ker-
nel files to be built in the kernel build directory:
+o kernel.debug is the complete debug kernel.
+o kernel is a copy of the kernel with the debug symbols stripped off.
This is equivalent to the normal non-debug kernel.
There is currently little sense in installing and booting from a debug
kernel, since the only tools available which use the symbols do not run
on-line. There are therefore two options for installing a debug kernel:
+o ``make install'' installs kernel in the root file system.
+o ``make install.debug'' installs kernel.debug in the root file system.
FILES
/sys/conf/files list of common files system is built
from
/sys/conf/Makefile.ARCH generic makefile for the ARCH
/sys/conf/files.ARCH list of ARCH specific files
/sys/ARCH/conf/files.SYSTEM_NAME list of files specific to SYSTEM_NAME
on ARCH
/sys/compile/SYSTEM_NAME default kernel build directory for sys-
tem SYSTEM_NAME.
SEE ALSO
The SYNOPSIS portion of each device in section 4.
Building4.3BSDUNIXSystemwithConfig.
BUGS
The line numbers reported in error messages are usually off by one.
HISTORY
The config command appeared in 4.1BSD.
FreeBSD 10.2 July 4, 2001 FreeBSD 10.2